Tuesday 5th April 2022

Can you believe there's still snow on the ground? It's not deep, but it's certainly been hanging around for a while, and although it's absolutely gorgeous when the sun shines, I mean, warm enough to lay in the garden and sunbathe gorgeous, overnight the temperatures drop rapidly to below freezing and every morning I can't wait to get the fire going so I can snuggle next to it with the first cuppa of the day. I've got lots of seed pots prepped ready with their soil mix, but so far the only thing I've bothered to sow has been pea seeds which went in about a month ago and are now around four inches tall (indoors of course). I'm deliberately doing them early because last year, for the first time, I actually got a decent crop of peas, and I think it's because the pods were able to mature before the weather turned too hot. This year I've got about 70 plants on the go, in the hopes that there will be plenty for the freezer as I do like peas. Enough of the gardening talk for now because I want to tell you about something far more exciting.

You might recall last year I took a trip to Romania with some friends, well a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to head off on another adventure by train, this time to Turkey. We'd actually talked about it a year ago, but at the time, because of the Covid pandemic, a lot of long distance routes in Turkey were cancelled, plus we were a bit wary about being crammed together with potentially infected people and didn't want to take the risk. This was during pre-vaccine times of course. Now things had calmed down a bit ad so we resurrected our travel plans.

We set off early on Saturday to drive down to the Turkish border at the Kapitan Andreevo crossing point. On a hill just before the actual border on the Bulgarian side there's an enormous cross, and if you look past all the check points and customs official into Turkey you can see a huge mosque. I don't know if that's a coincidence or a deliberate statement, but I don't think most travellers take much notice. I suspect the big posters advertising Bulgarian casinos and dancing girls, and the lure of cheap shopping at the Turkish hypermarket in Edirne speak more to the people choosing to cross this border than anything else.

I guess all borders tend to be busy but this one rapidly turned manic. There were maybe four or five actual kiosks which were open, and possibly eight queues of cars trying to converge towards these. In Bulgaria, staying bumper to bumper with the car in front and avoiding eye contact really doesn't stop someone from the neighbouring queue ramming their way in. The annoying thing is, five minutes later, having barged in front of you, they then leave your queue and go and ram into yet another one. One old guy in a very dented vehicle (probably from his frequent border crossings) did this at least four times, even at one point reversing all the way back to then zoom down another lane. As we crossed the border, having finished with all the formalities, we saw a couple of men helping push the dented car over the border and out of the way. Clearly all the stop starting and racing around had proved to much for the little car!

The scenery is fairly flat and rural as you head towards Istanbul, but soon there are enticing glimpses of the sea in the distance, and then for quite a long stretch you follow the coast towards the city. I was last in Turkey in 1986, backpacking with a friend from uni. Back then I believe the population of Istanbul was about 5.5 million, but now it's 15.5 million, and the suburbs of tower blocks spread for miles and miles before you're anywhere near the centre. I think as we arrived that all 15 million of them were chugging along the same road as we were because it was very slow going. On the way home we discovered there was a bypass which runs more along the coast side and might have been a bit more free flowing, but we didn't know that on the way in. Needless to say it was a great relief when we got to our hotel, but after hot showers we were refreshed and ready to head out to eat.

The first job was to draw out some money from the cash machine though. I've got a Monzo bank card which can be used anywhere in the world to withdraw up to £250 per month without charge. Just because Monzo don't charge doesn't mean the ATM you're using won't, and apparently there are less and less in Turkey where you won't get some kind of tax taken off you. I guess with the way the Turkish lira is struggling it's a way of off-setting the fact that the foreigner will be getting a pretty stonking exchange rate. We tried a few ATMs along the high street with some charging 8% for the withdrawal, and the best was around 4% I think. Still not brilliant but there was no choice. At a rough estimate we were working on 20 lira to the pound though I think it was closer to 18. If you use the Monzo card like a debit card though, in restaurants for example, then there's no tax taken, so on future trips I'd probably try and do more of that.

Having loaded up on the lira, my next challenge was to buy a Turkish sim card. In Bulgaria I'm only on pay as you go with A1, and unless you're on a contract, they don't allow roaming outside of Bulgaria at all. That means as soon as I cross the border I have no phone access. I wasn't planning on making lots of calls, but I did want to have mobile internet all the time as it's so handy for using maps, checking out restaurants and so on. Turkcell do a tourist sim which gives you 20 gb of data, 200 minutes and maybe texts as well for thirty days. The price when I got one was 350 lira - a bit pricey just for a week's holiday but I wanted to do it. The guy in the phone shop (who didn't speak English) put the sim in for me, took my passport details and then pointed out the pin code on the little envelope the sim card came in. This unlocked it for my phone, and away I went. I've got two sim slots in my phone so I'd removed the UK sim to make way for the Turkish one. Not wanting to risk losing the UK one, I tucked it into the little envelope and left it locked in the car, along with some clothes and things which I wouldn't need until we returned to Istanbul later in our trip.

The next morning we had an early start to get the metro train to the mainline station where we'd take the fast train to Ankara. We knew we wouldn't have an awful lot of time to spare and started to panic when the ticket machine refused to accept any of our money. I eventually found a station worker and dragged him over to the machine to see if he could help. It turned out the machine wanted the exact money, so we were sent over the road to a little snack bar where the taxi drivers were having a morning coffee and waved our 100 lira notes at them, saying 'small' as out of my twenty word vocabulary that was the closest I could get to 'can you change this for me please?' Having got used to managing in Bulgaria with the language I have, it was weird suddenly being right back at the beginning again with not being able to communicate freely. Anyway, we got our change and the machine happily gave out our tickets. The Istanbul Metro is really swish! Clean carriages with no dividing doors, so you can literally walk from one end of the train to the other. Above the seats there is a plan of the stations which lights up as you approach each stop so you know where you are. They are also announced before the train stops and finally the station name scrolls across another display board at various intervals along the carriage, with a helpful arrow to let you know if the platform will be on the left or the right.

As it turned out, after all the ticket machine panic, we got to the mainline station with an hour to spare, so I decided to turn my phone on and play a game or two. Disaster! Having been switched off, my phone now wanted me to re-enter the pin code for the Turkish sim. Without this I couldn't unlock my phone at all, I was horrified. The pin code was on the envelope locked away in the car, I could have cried. Luckily my level headed travel companions said if I just took the Turkish sim out then my phone should act as normal, so I did this and yes, it no longer needed to code to be unlocked. Of course it was so annoying that I now wouldn't have the mobile internet I wanted, and so wouldn't be able to see our journey unfolding on a map, but at least I could listen to things I'd already downloaded and play games on the long journey.

The journey to Ankara was pretty uneventful. The train is a high speed one, and I think the journey took about 4 hours. Ankara station is pretty big and split into two main sections. There's the one where we arrived from Istanbul, which has about four tracks and its own arrivals and departures board. Then you have to cross over a bridge to another section with more tracks. This is the area we had to go to for our next train to Kars. Every time you enter a new section of the station you have to put your bags through an x-ray machine and walk through a security scanner, just like at airports. Having found where our train would depart from, we went back into the main complex and had some food at a cafe: a plate lined with a layer of soft bread, almost like a naan, topped by a ton of doner meat slices and a big slab of creamy yoghurt to one side. The server then came over with a jug of sizzling hot butter to pour over the top, though I only had a tiny dribble of this as it was grease overload. It was simple fare but tasty, especially the yoghurt, which was nice and solid and really went well with the meat. As time went on I found that this is commonly served with meat in Turkey and it really does make a great accompaniment. Armed with some burgers from a nearby Burger King, it was time to board the Dogu Express train for our 26 hour trek across Turkey to Kars.

During the winter months, the trip from Ankara to Kars is incredibly popular, and as soon as train tickets come up for sale, the tourist agencies buy up all the couchettes, and only release them back for public sale an hour or so before the train goes. Unfortunately, for the outward league of our travels we were unable to get any couchettes so had to make do with ordinary seats. They are pretty comfy seats though, wider than normal train seats and better shaped so you can lean back into them. They also recline quite a bit to make sleeping easier. They also all face forward (a blessing for people like me who sometimes succumb to travel sickness) and are arranged with two seats on one side, then the aisle and then a single seat. All in all the carriages feel quite spacious. And the price for travelling 1133 kilometers across country? Less than five pounds! Consequently I lashed out on two seats side by side so that I'd be able to curl up properly for a better sleep. When the conductor asked why I had two tickets I explained my reasoning and he winked, nodded and said I understand.

We chugged along merrily, eating our snacks, snoozing and watching the scenery pass by. As darkness fell I alternated between sleeping and listening to podcasts with my jumper over my face to block out the light from the carriage. Every so often we stopped at a station, but only for a few minutes each time, but then at about 1am we arrived at Kayseri, a large town southeast of Ankara. We seemed to stop on the tracks for quite a while, and various passengers began gathering their belongings together. Watching them, we just assumed it was a major stop and that a lot of people would be getting off. Eventually the train chugged into the station itself and pretty much everyone got off. We sat there feeling that something wasn't quite right, when the conductor came up and with the aid of Google Translate on his phone, informed us that everyone was being transferred to coaches to go to Divrigi where we'd presumably then get on a train again. Rapidly we grabbed our things and feeling cold and half asleep we vacated the train and joined the crowd waiting on the platform. It was all a bit chaotic and it occurred to me that not everyone would be going all the way to Kars, and maybe there were coaches to different destinations. I latched onto a smart looking young man and gesticulated at him asking Divrigi? He nodded, so from then on we didn't let him out of our sight so we'd be sure to get on the right coach.

It was a bit smoky in the waiting room area, so we went and sat on the steps outside, but it was so cold, and the tiredness and unknowing didn't help. It seemed like hours and hours but then finally several coaches came into view and pulled into the parking area in front of the station, hurrah! I figured we weren't going far so I just put my wheeled suitcase in the baggage area and took my rucksack on board with me. My friends had saved me the seat in front of them and as I sat down, another rather large lady came and sat next to me. That was that. For the next four hours I would literally be unable to move a muscle, and would regret my decision to keep my coat on as the temperature and stuffiness on the bus went through the roof. In hindsight we all agreed that the driver deliberately turned the heat up to send us all into a state of passive semi-consciousness so he could ship us to Divrigi without incident.

I woke up a few times on the journey but, not doing well on coaches, was instantly aware that I felt queasy and rapidly re-shut my eyes, rested my head against the window and slipped back into slumber. At 7am, surrounded by steep rocky hillsides and clear blue dawn skies, we finally pulled into Divrigi station, what a relief! As I got off the coach I felt like I couldn't walk straight, but managed to wobble my way across the tracks to the waiting train, found our same seat numbers and sank down, just grateful to not be moving for the moment. Half an hour and a couple of pain killers later I perked up considerably, so we made our way down to the buffet car for a morning cuppa.

We weren't quite sure what to expect from the buffet car as some online reports mention being able to get breakfast whilst others said it was more like bottles of water and packets of peanuts. The truth turned out to be more like the latter. There were various cold drinks, water, tea and coffee, plus a limited selection of crisps, nuts and sometimes some bread rolls. All we really wanted was the tea though, which is tastes the same as ordinary black tea. I'd brought powdered milk with me and so we breakfasted on several cups of tea and morning coffee biscuits. I must say that this was all while still parked up in Divrigi station. At one point we chugged off up the line a few hundred meters, but the passengers still milling around on the platform didn't look unduly concerned. Twenty minutes of so later we chugged back down to where we were again, so I guess we were just being shunted out the way for another train passing through. Finally, at about 9am, everyone reboarded the train and we continued our way east.

I have to say the scenery on this section of the journey really made all the chopping and changing worthwhile. We followed the Euphrates River which gushed along, muddy brown as the melting snow churned the waters. On either side of us, bare hillsides rose up, carved with dramatic rock formations and dotted with tiny little villages, no more than a handful of stone houses, camouflaged among the surrounding rocks which they cling to. Behind the hills were the mountains. A dramatic range, white with snow and gleaming under the clear blue sky. It was all very different from the forested greens of Bulgaria; much harsher and wild looking. It made me really want to come back by car and just pootle from village to village, and soak up the isolation of it all. I imagine in spring it would look very different and there might be some amazing wild flowers dotting the landscape.

With all the delays were arrived in Kars much later than we'd anticipated, and after showers, collapsed into our cosy beds ready for a good night's sleep.

We'd arranged a taxi for 10am in the morning, so were able to have quite a leisurely start to the day, filling up with a really nice buffet breakfast consisting of copious amounts of fresh bread with various honeys and syrups to dip it in, cold eats, cheeses, cooked eggs and salads. I had a bowl of cereal as well, and of course a few cups of tea. We gave ourselves away as being British as soon as we dolloped some milk in the tea! When we went down to reception at ten o'clock, the taxi driver was there waiting for us. All communication was once more via Google so we put ourselves in his capable hands as we piled into the car and tried not to notice the enormous crack running right across his windscreen.

We were heading north out of Kars for about 60km to Lake Cildir. From November through to April each year, it freezes solid enough for horse drawn sleds to ride across it, and people catch fish by means of holes cut in the ice. It was to experience both these things that we'd come here. At least that's what we hoped we were being taken to see. Google hasn't quite got to grips with Turkish yet, because one of the taxi driver messages we received when initially booking the trip promised us 'jumping girls' along with the sled ride and ice fishing.

With all the patchy snow across the landscape and the cloud filled sky, it all looked very bleak and cold out there. The villages we passed looked really poor, with many roofs covered in blue tarpaulin sheets and slabs of compressed manure stacked in the yards ready for burning for fuel. The land was fairly flat, brown and muddy where not covered by snow, and devoid of greenery aside from the occasional scrubby tree and shrub. Life here looks hard.

After an hour the driver pointed to the left and announced Cildir, and we could make out a flat area, pure white: the frozen lake. We drove alongside the lake for quite a while before winding our way around the north end and then turning off into a small village set on the edge of the water. As with the other villages we'd passed, this one was a little scattering of stone and brick buildings, some rendered and mostly single storey. The same blue tarpaulins kept various heaps protected from the elements, maybe the same slabs of manure fuel we'd seen in other villages, but of the inhabitants there was no sign. Not surprising I guess, considering the weather, which was rather bleak with the only thing separating the uniform white of the sky from the flat snow of the lake, being the patches of bare soil between the houses. For us, though, it just added to the atmosphere and the anticipation of activities on a frozen lake.

We parked outside a small café and went inside to the welcome warmth from the wood burning stove in the middle of the room. The owner came out and welcomed us asking if we'd like a cup of tea made using the double teapot known as a 'chaydanlik'. If you haven't seen one before, picture a big teapot with a smaller one sitting directly on top. The tea leaves go in the top pot and the water goes in the bottom one, and the whole thing is set on the stove for the water to boil. Once it's done so, some of the hot water is poured into the top pot for the tea to brew. Tea is then poured from the top pot into a glass, and then hot water added to the glass so that the tea isn't too strong to drink. I guess you just keep topping up the hot water in the bottom pot and have instant tea on the go all day long. Not surprising for the number one tea drinking nation in the world! Yes, honestly, the Turkish people drink way more tea than the Brits.

As we were having our tea, we saw the sleigh being prepared outside for our lake ride. Whilst that was happening, the taxi driver came across with another Google message. This one said, do you want to keep the fish from fishing? When we booked the trip there had been two options, one just to go ice fishing and the other to keep any catch. Not wanting to stink out the train with a bucket full of decomposing trout we'd said we just wanted to do the fishing. So, on seeing his message, I shook my head and said no.

Wrapped up in our layers, we headed back outside and made our way carefully down the frozen banking onto the lake where our ride awaited. It was a simple wooden cart with two seats in front and two behind, decorated with a few stars and moons, and with the Turkish flag fixed to the back. The whole thing was fixed on metal runners and drawn by a small white horse decorated in brightly coloured tassels and pompoms. We all piled in and the driver took his place up front. With a jerk we were off and rattling across the icy ruts in the snow. It was like a roller coaster ride at first as the carriage was jerked around and I was half scared of being thrown out, but then we left the ruts and headed onto smooth snow, making our way further out onto the lake. It wasn't a long ride, probably no more than five minutes altogether, but it was still a great experience, skimming along on the snow with the flat surface all around, and looking back at the village in the distance.

Back at the shore we thanked the driver and gave the horse a friendly pat before ducking back into the café or more tea. It was still only about 11.30am but the owner started bringing out our lunch: a big basket of soft fresh bread, fresh salad, pickled veg and enormous slices of crispy fried carp. I've always steered clear of eating carp before because people say it can taste of dirt, being a bottom feeder, but honest to goodness, this was some of the tastiest fish I've ever had. The skin was coated in a delicious mix of herbs, and the flesh came off the big bones so easily. It might not have been long since breakfast but we all soon cleared our plates.

After that there was a bit of a lull and we began to wonder when we were going to go fishing. Eventually we cobbled together the question via Google and showed the driver. Swiftly he typed back that I'd said we didn't want to go fishing! No, we want to fish, we just don't want to keep the catch. Misunderstanding cleared up, he phoned the fisherman to inform him of the change in plans. I think it was about this time he also told us, again via Google, that 'the seagulls are coming up from behind'. Were we going bird watching? Was our driver really some kind of John Le Carre spy character, checking to see if we were the contacts he was waiting for?

Out on the lake once more, this time to walk across to where the fishing holes were. The fisherman was already there and he and the café owner began to shovel out the thin layer of slushy ice covering the hole. The guys stooped to have a drink from the lake, motioning us to do the same which we did. It tasted just like ordinary water, and with a bit of like, the icy temperatures would be too much for any water borne parasites to survive. Looking into the hole I couldn't see anything except the pale green of the water. I asked how deep it was and the guy said maybe 17 meters at that point. Once that hole was clear, they headed over to a second hole and did the same thing, before then proceeding to pull up the fishing net which was strung under the ice between the two holes. As the net came up we saw there were two fish caught in it. One looked like it had been dead for some time, the other one was still flapping around. Having seen the catch, the nets were then dropped back in the water, still holding the fish, and the line at the first hole pulled taut to hold the net in place. I suspect the fish might be left there all season for the benefit of the tourists, hopefully the ones we'd eaten for lunch were a bit fresher. After a final cup of tea and a warm by the fire it was time to head off back to Kars ready to explore the town a little.

We never did get savaged by swarms of seagulls 'coming up behind' at the lake, but there were certainly plenty of them in town. There's even a huge model of one sitting on one of the street corners; part of a menagerie made up of at least one lion and a horse on other corners. There are quite a lot of street dogs wandering about too, big creatures with thick off white coats, originally from some kind of Anatolian shepherd stock. They all looked remarkably well fed though, not surprising when you see the enormous whole legs of cow hanging up in the butcher shop windows, and the big bones lying around. I think these strays get access to a fair few meat scraps. Actually, all the while in Turkey I noticed several examples of people looking out for the strays. From the train one time I saw mother dog trying with difficulty to get her pup off the tracks. A rail worker came along and picked the pup up to put it safely over the fence at the side, and encouraged mum to follow along. I also saw lots of either decent wooden kennels on the streets for dogs, and smaller plastic covered boxes presumably for cats to shelter in. And in Istanbul in particular, there were rugs and old blankets put down in dry areas and bowls of animal biscuits around. Anyway, back to Kars.

The town was much bigger than I'd imagined, and is criss-crossed by several high streets full of shops. There are also little back street areas with smaller stores, many of them with stalls extending out onto the street. If you wanted to buy a double teapot here there was no shortage of shops selling them, but much stranger was the vast number of shops selling cheese and honey. Oh to have seen one called 'Cheesy Bees'! The windows are full of enormous rounds of sealed cheese, and inside there are jars full of honey, bee pollen and even complete frames of beeswax still dripping in honey. Not cheap though, as I discovered in one shop where you could concoct your own mix from a variety of honeys for about ten times the price I'd normally pay. I'm guessing they must do a good trade in these products though as there were at least a dozen such businesses just on the few streets we walked along.

As we headed down one street, my friend spotted a place where we could get a drink and sample a very delicious Turkish treat - dondurmali irmik helvasi. The proprietor put some spoonfuls of warm, soft semolina halva onto a dish, and gave us a spoon eat so we could try them. It's the first time I've eaten halva, though I've seen it frequently in supermarkets in Bulgaria. From the pictures on the box I'd always imagined it to be some kind of sickly sweet nougat. Not so. This was heaven on a spoon, warm and soft with just the right amount of sweetness. I opted to just have the plain one which was then poured on top of a half tub filled with ice-cream. The warm halva is pressed down into the tub and a little sprinkling of chopped nuts added on top. As you dip into the pot you get a delicious mix of softened ice-cream with the still warm halva and nuts - perfection.

I'm sure this is beginning to sound like a trip to lurch from one meal to the next, and I'm afraid the evening continued in exactly the same vein. Turkey is one of those wonderful places where East meets West, and we were keen to sample foods from the many countries which border on to Turkey as well, and Kars, being only about 60km from both Georgia and Armenia, seemed the ideal place for this. For such a large town it doesn't seem to have many large restaurants (lots of snack bars and fast food places) but there was one which sounded promising, the Hanimeli Restaurant which served Georgian and Turkish dishes. It's a cosily decorated place with brightly coloured table cloths and cutlery holders, and walls covered in ornaments and pictures, including shelves full of little teapots. I can't remember everything we ordered to eat from the extensive menu, but it included rice cooked with dried fruits, lamb shank in a sauce of veg and meat juices, stuffed vine leaves, salad, yoghurt dip and of course copious amounts of bread, all washed down with some lovely Georgian red wine.

We hadn't long begun to eat when the owner of the restaurant got up and introduced us to two elderly gentlemen who would be singing and playing the bowl shaped Turkish guitar called the saz. The two guys wandered around between the tables playing what I presume were folk songs, very popular judging by the enthusiastic reception from the other diners. Notes of Turkish Lira were folded up and tucked into the little loops conveniently located at the end of the neck of the instruments, for just such a purpose. In between songs they talked with people, asking where they were from, maybe how long they were in town for and so on. From us all he could get was that we were English (best not risk Google Translate and its wild imaginings). We found out later, as they began to play again, that this was so they could sing little personalised ditties for each table. All the verses finished with the same words 'hosh geldin' meaning welcome. We were treated too, though the only bit I understood was when he mentioned 'ingilizche' (English) and finished with a welcome too. Whatever it was it made the other diners chuckle.

Greedy pigs that we are, we asked to see the menu again to look at the desserts, and opted to share the extravagant one which takes twenty minutes to prepare. When it came out it was like a cross between a delicate omelette and a pancake, covered in a sweet syrupy glaze flavoured with the secret mix of seven spices. It was tasty, and very different to anything I've had before, but very rich. You wouldn't want one to yourself on top of dinner!

More entertainment followed as the owner himself got up to sing, accompanied by what may have been his sons, one of whom played the accordion, and the other who beat out the rhythm on a cajon. The old boy put his heart and soul into the songs, and even without understanding a single word, you could see the emotion behind the lyrics.

At the end of a beautiful evening we went and thanked the owner for such a wonderful time, before making our way back to the hotel. I have to tell you, I found myself singing the 'hosh geldin' bit for weeks afterwards!

It was an early start the next morning as we'd booked a taxi at reception the night before to take us to the station at 7.30am. I was glad we weren't walking because quite a bit of snow had fallen overnight. At breakfast we spoke to another guest who was also from the UK and planning to take the same train. He finished eating before us and went to reception to also book a taxi. Whilst we were all waiting there with our bags, a taxi arrived. It was about 7.30 so we assumed it was ours, but the guy on reception said no, it was for this other guest. A bit annoying but we sat back down to await our ride. Minutes passed and still nothing. Our train was due to leave at 8am so we began to feel a bit worried. Finally we asked the guy on reception to check with the taxi company to see what was happening. To our horror he knew nothing of a taxi booking, being a different guy to the one on reception the night before. Either the previous guy hadn't made the call, or we'd just lost our cab to the other guest! Angrily we told him to get us a cab pronto and it duly arrived after a couple of minutes. Flying into the station we got on the train with little time to spare, unfortunately being unable to purchase any food or drink at the snack bar as we'd planned to do.

Unlike the outward journey, this time we had managed to secure a couchette compartment, so hopefully we would get some comfortable sleep. What we weren't sure about though was whether we'd once again all have to get off in the middle of the night, for a coach trip from Divrigi to Kasieri. I tried asking one of the other passengers, but they couldn't understand properly and thought I was asking about getting a connecting train. All we could do was make sure our belongings were gathered together as we approached Divrigi, just in case we had to suddenly alight. We also remembered, from the outward journey, that near the station of Erzurum it was possible to get big wraps filled with lamb, little pots of salad and syrupy baklava which were passed through the window of the buffet car by the guy running the station cafe. Luckily I'd taken a photo of the food, so as we neared Erzurum I showed it to the guy running the buffet car and asked for double portions of everything, enough to see us through to Istanbul if needed. Sure enough, at that station the order was ready and waiting for us, and we tucked in hungrily.

At about 8pm we neared Divrigi, and kept peeking out into the corridor to see if there were signs of people getting ready to leave. But Divrigi came and went and the train chugged on. It looked like we were safe for the night, so we made up our beds and snuggled down to sleep.

I was glad the outward journey had been so sunny, because now the weather was very overcast and snowy, and you couldn't see anything of the beautiful hills and tiny villages that we'd met on the way down. So we whiled away the time playing cards, going to the buffet car for tea, and just chatting. I must mention something else before I forget - the train toilets. I'd been prepared for these to get messy very quickly, and had envisaged paddling in there with trousers held up above my knees whilst trying to pee on one lungful of fresh air. I'd even gone to the trouble of taking a home made shewee, just in case the prospect of squatting down near untold horrors was too much, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. There was a mix of squat toilets and sit down ones, and yes the floor did get a bit damp, but overall they were kept very clean. There was always loo roll and paper towels for your hands, plenty of soap and water. So, apart from giving the seat a quick once over with a wet wipe now and then, it was all very usable. I got confused one time in the squat toilet by the sight of a plastic jug next to a low down tap. I assumed this was to swill the toilet pan with, so duly filled it with water and swooshed it around. As I stood up I spotted the flush button higher up the wall. Aha, I'd just used the portable bidet to clean the loo!

Despite not having the horrible coach transfer in the middle of the journey, we still managed to be four hours late as we approached Ankara. This meant that our connecting train to Istanbul had already gone, and we'd no idea if we'd get seats on a later one as they seem to fill up really fast. Once at Ankara station we headed over to the ticket desk and asked for three tickets to Istanbul. When for, she asked. Today, we replied. Today?! she said, trying to stifle her laughter. Hmm, sold out. Okay, so where's the bus station. She vaguely pointed to the other side of the station and we headed across, hoping that there would be a coach and that they had spaces for us. Fortunately there was a tourist information office on that side of the station, and there we found out that the bus station was actually about three kilometers away, so we all piled into a taxi to get there. Once at the bus station we found a bus leaving in about twenty minutes, but understood why the trains get booked up so quickly. Ankara to Istanbul by train: 4.5 hours and about £4. Ankara to Istanbul by coach: 7 hours and £10. At least we were going to get to the hotel this same day, and could have a bit of a lie in, in the morning. Stuffing my main bags into the hold, I got on and went to find my seat, which was occupied by an elderly lady. I showed her my ticket with the seat number on it, but she was clearly unimpressed and wafted me away. Maybe you can just sit anywhere, which often happens on Bulgarian coaches too, so I sat a few seats away. Minutes later the driver comes on and gesticulates that we three are on the wrong coach and need to wait in the adjacent bay. This after checking our tickets and happily stowing our baggage in the hold! At least it explained why someone else was in my seat, it wasn't my seat after all, right seat, wrong bus.

Another coach soon pulled into the neighbouring bay and we repeated the process, this time with all seats correctly allocated, and sat back to relax. We'd managed to grab a couple of sandwiches in the bus station, so unwrapped them to eat, at which point the steward came along and told us no eating. Okay, sneaky head ducked down school trip type eating then. The coach headed off through the busy streets of Ankara and out onto a major road. We hadn't gone far when we turned off into a service station which was a bit annoying. You'd have thought they'd have filled up with petrol before setting off. We actually parked up right at the entrance to the place, well away from the pumps, and the driver and steward got off and left us there. And so we sat, and waited, and waited... The steward came back on now and then but of course we'd no way of asking what was going on. God bless Google though because one of the other passengers came and showed us in English what was happening. Apparently this was the second coach which had attempted the Ankara-Istanbul journey, and now this one had also broken down and we were awaiting a third. Incredible.

It seemed ages before another coach came, this one already with passengers on board, and so we all got on and found seats wherever we could. At last we were on a coach which worked and were heading for Istanbul. The journey was pretty uneventful; the steward came along with free hot drinks, tubs of water and hand freshener at intervals, and one time we stopped in a service station to go to the toilet and have something hot to eat. It was a very tiring, long trip though, and even once we reached the outskirts of Istanbul he seemed to do a huge circuit all over the place before finally, at about 10.30pm, we got to the central bus station. Feeling horribly sick yet again, we fell into the nearest taxi, paid and exorbitant amount up front and sped off literally at 150km/h through Istanbul to our hotel. What a delicious relief to collapse into bed and not be moving.

After a decent lie in and a good breakfast we were all set for a day's shopping in the markets of Istanbul. This time we purchased an 'Istanbul Kart' which is a travel card you can preload with lira and use to tap in and out of your journeys on public transport. It certainly makes the trips a lot cheaper as each journey is half the cost of buying an individual ticket. The card itself costs 25 lira initially, and then you top up with however much you want at any of the machines on every station. You can also use the same card for more than one person; after you've gone through the barrier simply pass it back for the next person to use (I think up to a maximum of 5 people).

Cat checking the validity of the Istanbul Kart

We took two metro trains and ended up down near the Galata Bridge which is at the foot of a hill lined with little alleyways and hundreds of shops selling absolutely everything from ordinary household goods and tools, to clothes, herbs and spices, cushion covers and rugs, and food, food, food. It's a complete feast for the senses as there are all the sounds of shop owners inviting you in and calling to each other, the beautiful array of colours from the heaps of fruits, vegetables, herbal teas, sweets and spices mounded up, and then there are the scents; warm sweet halva, tickly spices, fruity teas, ah, it's hard to take it all in, in one go. And of course everything is so cheap. We wandered along, absorbing everything and making our purchases. I bought some thick woven cushion covers, teas made from all sorts of dried flowers and herbs, a box of Turkish delight from a shop with so many varieties I ended up buying one cube from each, and two big strings of dried peppers and aubergines, just because they looked pretty. Towards the top of the hill is the famous Egyptian spice market, which is good to experience though is very much geared up to tourists and so expect the prices to match. We sampled some teas here; one very nice fruity 'energy' tea (which I went on to buy) and one from eucalyptus which blew your sinuses inside out just by smelling it.

Honestly, you can buy ANYTHING here!

Making our way back down the hill we then hopped on a ferry across the Bosphorus to the Asian side of Istanbul. Here there are many more tiny shops and market stalls to browse, a few of them selling all manner of fish, and one very colourful place specialising in olives. Still on a mission to sample food from other places, we ended up at an Uzbek restaurant and stuffed ourselves on salads, meat dishes and little tiny dumpling parcels served with creamy yoghurt. Time had flown and it was already getting into early evening and the shops were starting to close as we headed back across the river, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel, where we sat and had a couple of games of chess while the owner brought us tea and biscuits - very civilised!

The next day was our last, but we made good time heading to the border and so decided to divert to Edirne for a bit more shopping. A lot of Bulgarians just cross the border to visit Edirne as there's a big Migros supermarket here, where you can buy a lot of food stuff for much less than it costs in Bulgaria, and there are also the little spice shops and market stalls in the town itself. At the supermarket I bought some more sweets (little sugar coated nuts which look like mini brains), some honey, pomegranate syrup and carob, as well as large packs of ordinary dried herbs like oregano as I use quite a lot in cooking. In the town it was odd being spoken to in Bulgarian as soon as we stepped out of the car, but I guess the locals assume that's what all the foreigners are. It was nice though, finally being able to understand and be understood again. We wandered round the markets and then had lunch of crispy fried livers, the ubiquitous thick slab of yoghurt, salad, and for dessert a ball of syrup soaked sponge with a warm tahini sauce poured on top - delicious and very filling.

Another very eventful trip and one which makes me think the odd long weekend in Istanbul would be perfect. So imagine how happy I was to read in the news that at long last the sleeper train from Bulgaria to Istanbul is to begin service again, having stopped operating due to the Covid pandemic. If it's like before, then you can pick up the train in Veliko Tarnovo in the early evening, and arrive in Istanbul first thing in the morning, all set to hit those wonderful shops and restaurants again. I can't wait!